


The World Ends With You

by greenasphodel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, F/M, M/M, Marauders, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 09:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6848740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenasphodel/pseuds/greenasphodel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus always knew that he would live his life over again. When he is sent back in time to his Hogwarts years, he finds that life is just as hard as he remembers it. This is not going to be his journey alone, however, not this time around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Wave Rising in the Past

**Chapter 1**

**A Wave Rising in the Past**

_A wave rolled toward you  
out of the distant past_

He often found it difficult to think, with all the voices clamouring inside his head constantly.

It didn’t help that there were voices _outside_ of his head as well, and not much friendlier.  Tonks had convinced him—after much back and forth—to get a place together.  Cheap with battered doors and walls that were some indistinguishable colour, but cosy after a few charms: just a temporary flat in a neighbourhood that was as untouched as possible by the reign of darkness falling over the entire country.  That description was so quintessentially Peckham that Remus suspected Tonks of picking out the place before she consulted him, but he allowed her that autonomy.

_She always knows what she wants; she is twice the man you are._

But the neighbours certainly were no less fearsome than Death Eaters.  They disproved of his marriage before any of them had met him or Tonks, and while Remus himself shared their disproval (albeit for different reasons), they really ought to keep their voices down when talking about how disrespectable wives were signs of impudence and a soft mind.  But the moment that she was _gone_ , they talked about him with thinly veiled distain over his debauchery, their pity immediately flocking to the woman once they saw her fleeing from home with a hand on her belly.

_They aren’t wrong; we aren’t wrong; she’s not wrong—it’s you, always has been you._

The mundane Sunday evening was drawing to a close, the falling darkness breathing heavily of typical London noise, and Remus _really_ had to get to writing.

_The damp heat from his breath mingles with the sweat along your neck—_

So he sat before his window, looking quite scholarly, mussing up his dry, flaxen hair that was once soft and almost blond.  His face was beyond youth and before old age, but it was marked by a fatigue premature to his years.

A gun shot fired somewhere nearby, and Remus did not even lift his head—he did not live in the best of neighbourhoods, and he had long gotten used to the Peckham Boys running about causing mayhem.  ‘Mayhem’ had a distinctly different taste after he graduated from school.  Besides, it was a fair evening: the sliver of the horizon that he could see, peeking out from snugly packed buildings, was a nice shade of red.

_—you draw red blood with your teeth and you can’t touch enough bare skin—_

The pen in his hand had seen more than its share of years, him taking to switching the gel refills instead of buying new pens; it saved him fifty-two pence per pen.  Most of his furniture were cast-offs found on the streets—a good, solid cleaning charm and various insect repelling charms ensured of the safety of usage.  Magic had long been reduced to an exercise in frugality to him.  Besides, he had picked up, over the years, a lingering fondness for mismatched furniture.

He caught his wandering thoughts and tried to herd them back to writing. 

_—the friction is delicious, so is the pounding from your bloodstream and his pulse—_

It wouldn’t do to miss another deadline—jobs were scarce and he was not good at keeping regular attendance at jobs where he had to show up.  It was a rather rotten job at best, but all last resorts were rotten.  Still, it paid the bills, and Remus didn’t care about the lack of literary value in his writing.

Well, calling it ‘writing’ was putting it generously.

Yes, Remus Lupin, ace student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, member of the Order of Phoenix, and husband to one of the last survivors of the Black blood, wrote smutty penny dreadfuls for a living, the kind that people picked off hastily and fugitively at train stations for a long ride.  He wrote under a subtle nom de plume, of course, a precaution beyond saving reputation, as werewolves did not have a good reputation in the literature world—or anywhere else, as a matter of fact.  He kept his work space very secret from Tonks, although he felt she might have rather liked it.  There must be a vein of madness in all those who shared the Black blood.

Speaking of madness, not far off from Remus, unknown to him, a bony little creature crept down the street, in swift, easy movements that met halfway between walking and crawling.  People have called this creature all sorts of names, but there were times when even the power of naming did not constrict a thing, and this was such a time.  He was just a simple mayhem-maker really, at heart, in his scrappy clothes, with his wry wild hair that was an impeccable white, watching with his large, liquid eyes of so intense a blue that it could not be called sky blue—the sky lost its colour next to _those_ eyes.  He was very good at making mayhem too, because his every whim and impulse was always fulfilled.

So this creature, who had snubbed the crying of the new-born Time back in the day, crawled and crawled, with surprising fluidity in his movements.

He stopped suddenly, in front of a gloomy shabby slanting house next to a dark alley that was uncharacteristically clean.

A chorus of strident voices besieged him right there, and he listened to the strange tongues of the wind and the world.

The stones told him that there was starvation and need inside.  The walls spoke to him of a man who wished and yet never hoped.  The curtains declared proudly that the man inside always smiled when he wanted to cry, always whispered softly when he wanted nothing more than to scream; always promised things that he did not believe in.  The glass said in a whispering voice that he would not need to seek anymore for his next mischief.  (Yet, do not be mad at the window—it was never spoken to in the last half a century!  Would one not want some amusement after that long of being pushed open to bear the sun, and pulled roughly back only to be hit by raindrops, which always _were_ on unfriendly ground with its kind?)

The Skriker—he was fond of that name, it had a fancy note to it—grinned.  He might have pitied the man, if only the Skriker knew pity.

The Skriker curved a long gaunt finger and slight breeze blew, turning stronger and stronger, till it blew the piece of paper the man had been writing on out the window that swayed a little further back, as if to make way for the wind.

He grinned again, to see the man frantically try to grab the paper, which so conveniently escaped him by such a slight twirl in the wind.  The man watched with dismay as his work went out to the streets to be carried off to wherever the wind pleased, which made the Skriker grin wider—a merciless smile, yet not in any way cruel—as a child sometimes smiled at the sight of a limp, dead sparrow.  (Oh Men, before you ask why the gods created you, hear the gods ask why you created him, and do not grow angry when the gods did nothing but dance in mayhem.)

 _What does the man want?_  He asked the glass window again, knowing that it had the loosest tongue of the entire house.

 _A miracle_ , the glass answered, giggling slightly in its own language.   _A miracle that could take away all these years of sorrow from his shoulders_.  Another giggle.   _Oh, do grant his wish: he breathes on me when the day is cold to tickle me with fog!_

See, the glass was not such a turncoat after all!

 _I’ll give him that_ , the Skriker promised with a nod and a smirk as he thought of his way of fulfilling the man’s wish, _all that and more!_

The more the Skriker dwelt on his plan, the more gleeful he became, and more amazed at his own brilliance.  Oh the cleverness of him!  The Skriker clapped for himself, the loud smacking of dry bones against each other echoing inside the walls, and whirled with rapture.

 _Snap_ , he clicked his fingers, and the world seemed to rock a little, move a bit out of its frame, as a low-quality film sometimes does on telly, creating for a split second a double layer of the world, both exactly the same, both a little less solid and vivid than put together.

And then some things changed.

Of course, nobody could say exactly what had changed, and the unwilling protagonist did not even know that changed occurred at all.

In fact he went to bed, quite resigned to the fate of losing even smut authorship.

**-.-.-.-**

Remus had always been a morning person, having a natural optimism in the bleary hours before he remembered that misfortune was just as likely to strike in the morning as it was at any other time of the day. 

He set out very early, when the dawn peered through his open curtains and rush hour traffic had yet begun, when only birds and very senile folks were about.

It was Monday though, so that should have been his first clue about the coming tragedy.

It all began before he was even out of bed.

He had one of those dreams again.  A good one.  He was back on the roof of the Gryffindor tower, that small ledge that he had spent many a warm night up there, doing nothing.  It was flat and wide enough only for a small-sized boy to lie flat—they could stretch their legs at twelve, but at seventeen it was a precarious spot, but they had always lived dangerously.  In his dream, there was also sweet-smelling tea, a full moon in the inky darkness above that he saw with human eyes, and there was Sirius beside him, impossibly elegant and happy, and James was one over, and even Peter was a good, pudgy boy in short sleeves with no marks on his arm or soul.  They crossed their arms over their heads with their elbows grazing, their youthful voices stretching into eternity…

The good dreams were the worst.

_Yeah, well at least you have dreams; the dead gets no comfort in dreaming._

Tonks had, of course, yet to rise.  Remus was her default alarm clock, but he had never been quite sure what exactly spiked wakefulness in her mind.  It had been easier with James and Sirius and even Peter.

Oh bugger, and he promised himself that today was going to be a good day too.  And then he woke up to thoughts of Peter and Sirius—

_—who is not here anymore; instead, in his place, you have a wedding._

The huge wedding photo hung over their bed, a large canvas encased in dark mahogany wood, reminding him of something he couldn't quite put a finger to, as if he was Damocles.  Tonks insisted the photo to be placed there—she adored it, called it the everlasting proof of the best day of her life.  She had looked positively radiant with her naturally pale skin, which couldn't be helped, her being half aristocratic and all.  Remus tried to avoid looking at the photo most of the time, but when he did, his photographic self gave him a weak, watery smile.  He had looked mostly just pale that day, and it had nothing to do with aristocracy.

Remus thought that perhaps he had time to go for a walk around the park before coming back to wake her up, him needing a bit of time to himself before putting on a believable smile for his woman.

_Smile for the camera, boys! said Missus Potter before she bent over in a stroke._

He swung to his feet, careful to avoid that one creaky wood board under the mattress, and put on an old jumper—it was angora wool, unbelievably soft and warm and expensive; had been a gift from a dead man.

_All you got left of him, you sure you want to wear it down so much?_

A quick toasting charm made the awful white bread more bearable, although the loaf had the souring smell that forewarned of coming mould.  He took two slices for the road, biting into the soft middle as he shrugged on an even older trench, and then was attacked by a swarm of city pigeons as he walked out of the door.

His house was a favorite gathering spot for the birds, all of them fat and neck-less.  Remus swore that they held morning conferences right outside his door; there was no other explanation for the utter lack of respect for a _door_ by the kit of pigeons.  No, he never fed the aggressive bunch—they did not need encouragement, nor any more meat on their flimsy, hollow bones, and most of all he had barely enough food for himself.

_You always were an exceptional liar._

Well alright, he tore off the crusts and scattered the pieces among them, but that was only because he hated the crust anyway.

One of the birds flew a bit too close to his eye and he jerked back instinctively, banged his head on the open study window, and caught his sleeve on the hook as he lifted his hand to rub the back of his head.

It was like the cosmos was trying to clue him in, but Remus was very, very determined to have a good day.

The nearby park was more or less an abandoned lot overrun with weeds.  It had originally been a park a very long time ago, judging from the broken swing at the entrance, but the demolition of the neighbourhood and the subsequent city attempts to clean the area up had wasted it.  Now it ran wild from lack of attention, and Remus thought it was an attempt at a joke that he lived right next to it.  Or poetically just.  Maybe both.

_All this ‘writing’ really has worn down what little thought you have left._

A few resilient heads of harebells found its nesting ground, squeezing aside weeds and daisies, in the place that ought to have been carnations and cabbage roses, Remus presumed.  The Peckham lot loved their roses.  The ivy here was almost feral in its domination over the place, tightening its hold on the poplars and oaks, mighty as they were.  Deep inside that particular cluster of thickly branched trees, Remus knew, was a patch that was always shaded and retained rainwater spectacularly well, giving birth to a combination of edible and poisonous mushrooms.  They grew in abundance, clinging to the bottom of the trunks, and often found their way into the Lupin household’s soups and stews.  It was convenient that the spot was very much out of sight, for poverty might have reduced his means, but never his dignity.

_Dignity started and ended when you survived them all._

The abandoned park was no strange land to Remus—he had walked along the moss-covered paths many times before, and in fact felt as if he was invited here long before the moss came.

He found a grassy spot underneath this tree that he arbitrarily chose as His, and sat down, gathering mushrooms into his lap.  Little light made through the boughs, and soon Remus found himself nodding off, the heavy silence weighing against his ears and the voices coiling like snakes inside his auditory canal.

That was when he got the call to arms.

Neville Longbottom’s voice reached him.  In addition to informing him of the battle place—Hogwarts, of course, this time he was certain it was poetic justice—and gave a pep talk of sorts about saving the world and what they were dying for.  No doubt he meant it to be inspiring and urgent at the same time.  The voices inside his head overlapped with Neville, but it was the usual bit so Remus still knew that the proper response was: “Of course, I will be there.”

As he Apparated home his tree did nothing but nod its leafy head when a slight wind picked up.

**-.-.-.-**

When he was hit by the green light streaming from the tip Dolohov’s wand, his body slackened and his mind finally shut up for once.

In that split second he felt like he missed the voices, like they have been Sirius’s all along.

“Oh Padfoot,” he murmured, as if he had an audience.

Caught in the hazy in-between he knew to be the difference between breathing and death, he thought he felt Sirius again by his side, taking his hand.

“I wish…” he breathed into Sirius’s neck, the breath thick and loud and laborious.

The Skriker’s remaining snap of fingers was recalled in the air, and the sharp sound echoed between the pillars of debris, too high a note for any earthly ear.  The creature’s laugh could almost be heard, though he himself was far, far away, perhaps in another dimension by this time.

“I bloody wish I could go back,” Remus sighed and slipped into another dimension himself.

If anyone paid attention, they would have seen a light shimmer of sparks that showered the burning Hogwarts grounds, making the stones sway to some imaginary wind, and drop as if weighted by some imaginary force.

Nobody did.

They never found his body, and in the aftermath of the victory, a search party was organized to recover Remus Lupin—a small sort of search party, that ended almost as soon as it begun.  The naiads in the lake was lamenting the ruined Hogwarts, and their elegy was as dangerous in sadness, and many a member of the Order had to be dragged away and treated to snap them out of their trance.  In light of that, and the sheer number of deaths, nobody exactly doubted the nature of the disappearance of Remus’s body.  Tonks would have got to be buried alone, but so did many others.  What was one man’s tragedy against the tragedy of hundred?  And what was even the tragedy of a hundred against the triumph of the world?

When Harry spoke at the funeral service, he delivered a speech about how great a man Remus was, as if any of these people had any idea about him.

Did it matter?  The world went on—sort of.


	2. You Who Never Arrived

**Chapter 2**

**You Who Never Arrived**

_Oh, within my arms I lost all whom I loved!_  
Only you remain, always reborn again.  
For since I never held you, I hold you fast.

Remus had been walking for a long time, further and further, in a sort of mindless daze as if he was Hansel from the German fairy tale.  It was quite shameful how long it took before he finally realized that something was out of place.

Didn’t he die?  He finally asked himself.  He should have known it was too easy to just simply drop dead.  To be fair, he did suffer from the mother of all migraines, but he wasn’t sure if pain was supposed to be a normal part of the afterlife.

If this _was_ the afterlife, then it was not very pleasant at all, and whoever said that death was an escape can go to hell.  His vision was swimming, and he thought he saw ghosts, hundreds and thousands of them, each one different yet each similar, flash before his eyes, till he could not but close his eyes.  His limbs hurt in a dull pain that made his nerves twitch.  His eyes were closed so tightly that he doubted for a moment if he still possessed the ability to opened them and recover sight.  Laughter chimed in his ears—familiar ringing laughter and barking laughter—those sounds hurt his ears, but his chest also twisted in pain, and he thought that perhaps he had an upset gastro system.

As you can see, in his years of adult life, Remus had become immaculately practical.

Suddenly, the pain in his body and the dizziness all vanished, leaving only a brightness that blinded him as well as any darkness would, and a stubborn refusal from his legs to stop shaking.

After his eyes adjusted to the attack of sudden light and his vision recovered, he took in the surroundings with wonder, then distrust, and finally he felt dizzy again as his thoughts turned into bees and buzzed inside his skull, humming in a fervid dance.

There were trees all around—not the petite poplars and young willows, tender and shielded in London warmth and noise.  These were ancient trees, old beyond guessing.  They were taller, darker, and thicker than any normal forest.  Recalcitrant magic ran astray here.  There was no sound, except an occasional rustle of a leaf falling through the still air, and there was no whispering or movement amongst the branches, no idle chatter of birds or the footsteps of furry, benign squirrels.  Here, Remus had an uncomfortable sense that he was being watched with disapproval, deepening to enmity.  The feeling steadily grew, until he found himself looking up quickly, or glancing back nervously over his shoulders, as if he expected a sudden blow from the chilling air.

There was not as yet any sign of a path, and the trees seemed constantly to bar the way.  Yet Remus found that his feet were familiar to the invisible paths, leading him with purpose that his mind could not comprehend.

He had a suspicion that he was back in the Forbidden Forest, and sighed—there wasn’t much for him to do except get out of here, was there?  He could worry about how the Killing Curse sent him to be killed inside a forest instead of doing the job itself—rather lazy of the spell, really.

Slowly, he followed the occasional beam of sunlight that leaked through the heavily woven net of leaves.  He could swear that the trees had their own voices and traded giggles over his shabby robe and grey hair.

Sirius always said that the trees were a gossipy bunch.  It was part of a large conspiracy theory that Sirius picked up in some book in the Black Library, of which Remus never believed a word of—it was all leaves whispering to the rain, and the rain in turn telling sunlight, who repeated it to the river, who carried the whisper to riverbank reeds, then onto a lake, and the such.

And suddenly there _was_ a lake in front of Remus, before he realized he had walked out of the woody labyrinth.

The lake of dark, impenetrable water, with a surface of beguiling calm, was the home of many water creatures.  Sea-maidens, who never ventured out of the deep; a hydra, who was rather lethargic and friendly despite his many scaled heads and ferociously long fangs; tortoises, who told the most wonderful stories, if you could bear the slowness of tongue; and most magical of all, the Lake Naiades.  Naiades were not as they were in Muggle lore—they were dark creatures, in touch with all that was secret, and what sharpness they lacked in their fangs they made up for with their song.  Sirius maintained that they were imported as an exotic pet fish from the Land of Lost Hope, before one escaped and made themselves such a nuisance.  This was why Remus never believed him.

Here Remus sighed again—he never did believe Sirius, did he?  Not when it mattered.

Remus followed the path to the lake, the water motionless and imageless.  Somewhere into the distance, a deep singing broke the surface, the musical notes rippling the water, marring the obsidian appearance.  For a split second, the lake offered reflections, then as quickly as it transformed, it changed back to ebony darkness once again.

That millisecond was enough.  Remus saw a boy in the water staring straight at him, with familiar large eyes that ate up more of his face that they had right to—a pale face, sharp against the whole, wide sky deep below the reflection.

He stumbled back, for he recognized the face: he had boxes of dusty photographs filled to the brim with that face, pieces of his youth that he refused to look at.  One always recognized the image of oneself, even if it was from years ago.

If Remus was in a more sound state of mind, he ought to have contemplated _how_ or _why_ or at the very least _what was happening_ , but in his case he was too bewildered to do much beyond stumbling, both physically and mentally.

So he did, stumbling back and stepping on a dirt trail that he had travelled upon countless times before.

The path naturally led to the castle, as absurdly imposing as he first laid eyes upon it, so many years ago, its granite grey and formidable, although Remus had learned to doubt its invincibility.  Right now though, he could see the bright fires burning inside, warm glow leaking through the curtained windows.  Even from this distance, he could see the grand gates of Hogwarts being slightly ajar, almost as if the centuries-old castle was expecting him, inviting him home.

He treaded softly towards the castle, careful to not wake this—whatever this was.

… Until he hit something.

Or rather, something hit him, and sent him toppling into the water.  In an instant, the intense pain of coldness gnawed on his bones, and he half wished that he could die on the spot and be released from the pain.  It was like being hit by a very painful spell, and well, to be honest it was rather like being hit by Dolohov’s spell, and so he thought: _Here it comes, here comes death._

His knee had scraped the jagged bank, and though it should have hurt like a wasp sting, the water had wrapped around his leg, so he felt nothing but a deep, haunting numbness.  The water was black, he knew, he felt, though his eyes were set closed—black, not with dirt and sand, but a colour that the water simply was.  He sank into the blackness, and accepted it.

Turned out that Remus always accepted the wrong things, for something had grabbed his leg and pulled him out of the watery doom.

It was an awkward and embarrassing position, but the boy saviour gave a wicked grin that held far too much amusement, and in his thin, pre-puberty pitch he said, “Wasn’t looking, mate—here, take my robe, that lake has water that could kill, _literally_.”

Sirius would have sounded considerate if it wasn’t for the utter lack of sympathy in his voice, but Remus immediately forgave him anyway.  The boy did take off his black robe, brand new and all, and tossed it offhandedly to him, revealing a white tee that was too well-fit for an eleven-year-old.  Remus felt the thick fabric of Sirius robe between his fingers, and draped it over his own wet and whispering robe.

“I suppose you were on your way to catch the train?”

Remus nodded despite not knowing anything about life at this moment.

“Alright, well come along then, I saw a free carriage over there,” he pointed around the curve of the lake where he came from.

Remus teeth clattered in an attempt to speak.

“Well _hurry up_!”  Sirius exclaimed, his imitation of friendliness slipping away to impatience now.

That was that: he was sharing a carriage with Sirius Black— _Sirius Black_ —to get the train, to go wherever.  As Remus settled himself against the corner of the carriage seat and snuggled deeper into the yielding cushions, he mused as well as his frozen mind would humour him.

Perhaps it was a near-death hallucination; or maybe he was trapped inside the promised land of a naiad’s song, weaving illusions more beautiful than any reality could offer.  He wasn’t going to question it, in any case.  It had to be real though, because of the mud and the slimy water that still clung to his skin—it his mind was fabricating it all, Remus was sure he would have made himself look better for Sirius.

Still, there was something vaguely unsettling about it all, and some voice in the back of his mind kept whispering how it shouldn’t have been here and now, and instead _three seventeen in the afternoon, two days after Easter, in the second-floor corridor between the Charms classroom and an empty one…_

The voice kept telling him how it wasn’t right, but for something so wrong it certainly felt right when the boy rewarded him with a brilliant smile.

But not so much weighted on Remus’ mind then, for who could think of boring, troublesome matters such as time when they had Sirius Black by their sides?

He limped onto the train into an empty compartment, and Sirius had shuffled quickly into the crowd to search for his friends, leaving Remus behind with a formal ‘Good day’.  Remus didn’t mind being alone, really, and in fact smiled all the way through Scotland straight into London, smiling at the endless, unchanging fields of crops, smiling at the gloomy sky.

The warmth in the air told him of the time and his own height told him of the age; the train’s passage old him where he was going, and everything else fell in place after that.  Some things happened without reason or explanation, and if he was alive only to die again, Remus was okay with that, as long as he got the in between right this time.

And he kept smiling as he limped off the train, onto the station, and there they were, his family, waving at him.  His mother, a woman of thirty with lovely soft hair of light brown, large eyes always tender, the corners furrowed from smiling so much, in a dress of sunshine, with a hat of moonlight over her head, ran to his side immediately, and stroke his head, “Something wrong with your leg, honey?”

His body was eleven, but somehow the idea of his father stroking his head in public was not humiliating in any way.  And though his knee screamed to be taken care of, to be dressed with herbs of his grandmother, to be blown gently by the breath of his mother, Remus shook his head.  “Nothing’s wrong, mummy,” he said breathlessly, “nothing at all.”

His father walked over and clapped his back, “Well, our little Remus is certainly having fun, from his expression.” His father was in his best suit of grey that matched his eyes of an overcast spring day wonderfully.  He wrinkled his aquiline nose in good humour and hugged his son.

“Welcome back, Remus,” his mother said to the happy boy.


	3. Beauty is the Beginning of Terror

**Chapter 4**

**Beauty is the Beginning of Terror**

_For beauty is nothing  
but the beginning of terror we can just barely endure_

Remus always suspected that he would be able to live it over again.

He always knew that there was more to his life—that it couldn’t be _it_.  It was too much _utter_ crap.  Everything in the last few decades of his life—his previous life—had such a surreal quality to it, like it was just a dream.  There was just no proof until now.  It was impossible to prove that his previous life was a shell, a dream, a foreshadow, a vision, a draft version to be thrown out and shredded and recycled to be made into more draft versions.  Some people cut themselves to prove that it _wasn’t_ a dream, but that was just idiotic.  Remus had been cut up and tore apart too often to say that pain did not exist in a dream, that blood flowing out was anything but a bleeding puzzle.

Here he was though.  Waking up to his life, his _true_ life.  And he couldn’t stop thinking: _Here it goes._

He spent the last warm, transparent days of summer helping grandmamma trim the garden again, laughing noiselessly when wisps of hair fall out of her white-blonde chignon, knowing that this was the last time grandmamma would be in a garden.

It was not a sad knowledge though, despite the inexplicability of it.  He was oddly serene with the thought of death, and greeted it like an old friend.  Remus knew for a fact that come October, grandmamma would slip on a pebble in her beloved garden, crack her hip, and it would all be downhill from there.  He did not tell father though, and not even mummy when she came around to kiss him goodnight.

There was nothing to be done in the face of death.

He came to King’s Cross like that, a sort of heavy passivity settled over his bones, making him both lethargic and apathetic.  So he sat in the empty comportment with a heavy Tolstoy in his hands.  He was staring out the window—he didn’t feel like reading _Resurrection_ , but a boy with an open book was as uninviting a look as he could muster.

The train would look the same in twenty years; thirty, fifty, a hundred.  Even when trains would no longer be the transport of choice by civilization, the magical train of Hogwarts would still rear its lofty head and spit out white fumes.  The same doors, the same comportments, the same windows and seats, even the same food trolley probably, all telling endless stories of endless sorts of students that no one could hear.  Remus thought he should resent that, for those who _rode_ the train would never be the same again.

Even him.

 _Especially_ him.

With a jolt, the train moved.  And suddenly, he was in daylight.

Under the fair sky of September, the vast grassland sang its quiet song.  The sky grew bluer and bluer as the train picked up.  The heat of summer was silently ebbing away, and the shadows of the trees seemed to be infinite.  The streaming land outside the windows stretched into a blur, towards and beyond the horizon.  The wheat bowed their heads at the weight of the grains.  Flocks of black birds swooped down to peck on the decaying remains of fruits that were once ripe and ready for picking.  Remus imagined that he could hear the awful noises that the birds made even through the train windows, in their shifting clouds of black against the sky.

_Clamp.  Bang._

That was the sound of iron doors opening and closing, repeatedly and hurriedly.

His own door opened to show Sirius, hair cropped to its usual end-of-summer length.  _Sirius_ , Remus thought as he stopped his breathing.  Sirius was a little short for a twelve year old boy, but would hit a growth spurt very soon, one that would leave him half a head above Remus for the rest of his life.  The khaki pants and white shirt he wore were strange for his age as well, but Remus knew the particular aesthetics of Mummy Walburga Black demanded nothing less than formal dress robes at all occasions, so Sirius always donned casual Muggle clothing.

Hiding away all his knowledge of the boy, Remus smiled and said, “Can I help you?”  He ended his question by lingering the last syllable, as if to insinuate that he didn’t know who the boy was.

As expected, boy-Sirius flashed a quick frown before a winning smile melted out.  “I was looking for Potter.  You wouldn’t happen to not know _him_ either, would you?”

“No, I know James Potter.  Thorny hair and old-fashioned glasses.”

Boy-Sirius was much easier to read than the adult-Sirius: as of now, boy-Sirius was caught between being irritated that Remus didn’t know of him but knew James, and laughing at Remus’s description of James.  In the end, he settled with: “Well, _have_ you seen him?”

Remus shook his head.

“Right, of course.”  Sirius turned to leave.

“I’ll come with you to help you look,” Remus said quickly, closing his book and rising.  Of course he could not sit there anymore, in solitude with only his own voice to break the suffocating silence—not while Sirius was around.

“If you must,” Sirius tossed back nonchalantly, not bothering to look back once.

As disheartening as it was to have Sirius be so brusque, Remus realized that Sirius did not have prior knowledge.  He did not remember any of the laughter, the mischief, the stuff that made life worth living for Remus.

They found James all too soon, in the very back of the train, chatting with another boy, blond and a little fat.

Sirius strode up to James and simply said, “James.”

“Sirius,” James answered solemnly.  They then broke out into equal grins, before James stepping back and introducing: “This is Peter.”

Sirius frowned at the twitchy blond boy, who was currently the tallest in the group, although he would stay at that same height for the rest of his life.  Sirius did not like people who towered over him, in childhood or adulthood.  “Who is this?” he demanded.

“Peter,” James repeated, annoyed.

“I mean _who_ the hell is he,” Sirius repeated as well, emphatically and rudely.

James suddenly understood what he meant.  “Oh, I met him in the station.  Ace bloke.”

Sirius gave a scoff that achieved a bewildering level of condescension.

“Well he’s coming with us,” James declared, in a tone that might as well have been ‘ _I’m keeping him_.’

Peter seemed more at ease, now that the two were talking about him as if he was not there.

“Well,” Sirius suddenly dragged Remus next to him, “this is—” He looked expectantly at Remus.

“Remus Lupin,” Remus looked at James bravely; or at least bravely for a small boy who was unwittingly swirled into a tug-of-war.

“Nice to meet you,” James nodded politely at the same time that Sirius laughed, “Neat name!  The same Remus who got butchered over the claim of Rome, I presume?”

Remus shrugged, having long come to terms with his name, “I rest safely in being an only child.”

Sirius laughed again, and it was a surprisingly genuine laugh, “You’re _funny_ ,” he said, as if he was surprised by it.

Remus shrugged again.  When life treated one as badly as it treated him, there was nothing left but humour.

“Say, aren’t you the one I knocked into the lake? Your leg didn’t seem to be in the best working condition last time I saw you.”

 _I must learn_ , Remus thought, _how to say such things so easily, so casually, as if commenting on the weather._ “I’m fine. Well, I did limped for some time, and, that is, well but,” he took a deep breath, “Yes, I’m fine.”

“So, had a good summer?” James asked casually.

Remus hesitated.  He thought about his days romping around in his dying grandmother’s flowers, his apologetically loving father trying to coax him into standing within two yards of an old broomstick (he was not fond of giving his life to a simple stick of wood, as magical as it was), and his doting mother.  He thought about the childhood memories that would always be warm and hazy despite being a werewolf and bringing pain to his family.  He thought about how _happy_ his family was, and how he loved them so very much.

“Not quite,” Remus said, giving the answer that he knew would gain Sirius’s approval.  He was guilty, but as soon as he saw Sirius’s smile, Remus found his lips curling at their own will to match Sirius’s.

“Sirius,” Sirius said all of a sudden.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My name—Sirius Orion Black.”  It would appear that Remus was now worthy to know this.  “I had an awful summer too.  That’s Sirius you know, from _Seirios_ the scorcher of the Ancient Greek.”

“ _My_ summer was _glorious_ ,” James said in a naturally competitive tone, although he did not mean to come off like that.  “My mum and dad planned the vacation for our villa in South Tyrol, but the _Puddlemere United_ has a match against the Italian Palermo Doves, so of course I made them take me there.”

Remus knew that coming late in the Potters’ lives, their baby boy James was a king in the household.  Of course if James wanted to cut their restful stay to see a Quidditch match, they would go see this Quidditch match.

“Tyrol is so _boring_ ,” Sirius crinkled his nose and said in disdain, “It’s so _pastoral_ and picturesque, it makes me want to _puke_.  What?” he asked harshly when Remus chuckled.

“Oh, you just alliterated.  Thrice.  I found it funny,” Remus explained.

“Well we can’t _all_ have villas in Peschici—in fact, I think your folks blasted the last unfortunate wizarding family who trespassed onto Black vacation grounds,” James grumbled.  He had been to the Black villa there, and it was gorgeous; also the great big windows gave a _fantastic_ view of birds sunbathing in bikinis along their beach.

“We rarely go to Peschici,” Sirius said haughtily, “It was just the Yaxleys’ luck that our underwater Lake Annecy forte was undergoing viperfish extermination, and the abnormally heavy rainfall in Gullfoss flooded our bungalow behind the waterfall.”

Sirius, when he ran away, hid inside that particular bungalow for a few days—it was one of the most breath-taking places that Remus had ever seen, an entire bungalow carved out of the stones behind the waterfall.  The entrance was perpetually lined by rainbows and an artificial sun lit up the interior with warm, soft sunlight.  Iceland was beautiful by itself, but that place really took some kind of architectural genius.  However, by the time James, Peter, and him intervened, Sirius had trashed the place with his morose mood, and it became uninhabitable due to Sendak wasps settling in.  One of the small tragedies in life, Remus mused.

“I stayed in London with my parents,” Peter said timidly in the silence that stretched.  The boy seemed nervous again, and stepped closer to James.

Remus couldn't decide what to think about the smaller boy—was it fair to dish out judgment of him, for some future action?  Remus had to wonder, was there any good in Peter, in the beginning?  Was there any good now?  Would Peter not have rather stayed at home drinking tea with the friends he betrayed—would betray—than to come out into the world and be a part of that Great War?

He supposed that he didn’t need to make up his mind right now, Remus thought, so he gave the trembling boy a placating smile, as if to say ‘ _don’t worry, it’s not you_ ’.

The message seemed to get through, as Peter visibly slackened his tightened shoulders and watched the exchange between James and Sirius silently.

As did Remus, who just watched as Sirius formed pearls of words and hurled them at James.

The entire ride to Hogwarts, Remus was close to tears, for he knew that he was again so near beauty, and he would never be the same again.


	4. Childhood Hours

**Chapter 4**

**Childhood Hours**

_Life was never again so filled with meeting,_  
with reunion and with passing on  
as back then, when nothing happened to us

Now that they were grown-up Second Years, they could try out for Quidditch, and so the weekend of second week found Remus’s entire dormitory sizzling with nervous energy.

James was certain that he would make the Seeker, despite the growing haziness in his sight, and refused to put on glasses.  Sometimes, he would miss the door handle by half an inch, and other times he would hit the back of Remus instead of Sirius when throwing parchment airplanes in class.  He adamantly denied suffering myopia though, and it was a wonder that he made a Chaser at all.

Sirius was no less passionate about the game, but he did not want the vainglory of the Seeker position.  No, Sirius sought the game for the pure violence of it, finding himself settling into the role of the Beater as if he had been doing it for years and years, his eyes bright and wanting, taking in sudden movements and the occasional bloodied face.

Peter also made the team, although it was more because of his advantage in size than any natural talent—albeit he was only a backup to the backup Keeper.

Only Remus was left out, but Remus smiled good-naturedly and brushed off any attempts to goad him into taking up a broomstick.  The boys were naturally persuasive, and despite his atrocious flight skills, he did not doubt that as long as he could lift himself into the air, the Captain would have given him a place on the bench.  But Remus did not trust a piece of wood with his life, even before being bitten, and the wolf’s distrust only gave him an excuse to give in to his irrational fear.

It wasn’t so juvenile, he reasoned in his mind, as his eyes followed Sirius and James weaving curves into the air.  James and Sirius would have their bones broken too many times, and although there was never any lasting damage, Remus didn’t like the way Sirius reacted to the pain, treating it like something new and exciting.

Besides, everybody had _some_ pet peeve.  James didn’t like spinach and baby photographs, although the former was a common affliction of children, and the latter was because he was forced through old photos of himself on a regular basis by his parents.  Peter had an aversion towards milk and would develop a fear of heights after this summer’s vacation to Dover, when he would become distracted when the guide explained the historic significance of the white cliffs and almost fall to his death—this would lead to an explosive but short fight in their Third Year, when Peter was actually called up to be a Keeper and invariably lost the game for Gryffindor.

But Remus was getting ahead of himself.

And Sirius had a most impressive list, from general distastes—of asymmetrically shaped rooms, fake silver dishes, the sound of sneezing, thyme, cockatrice engravings on overdoors, overtly and gaudily elaborate curtain rails, yellow wallpaper, Impressionist paintings as decoration, among many, many other things—to mild apprehensions—of too-bright neon-pink light, being tickled with feathers, translucent tape, rust on keys—to the bizarrely crippling phobias—of egrets, peanut butter sticking to the roof of his mouth (which was a very real phobia apparently, called _arachibutyrophobia_ ) and at least a claim of didaskaleinophobia, the fear of attending classes.  Remus knew Sirius’s quirks better than his own—or indeed better than Sirius knew himself.  There was—would be—this one time when they tried to compare dislikes, and Sirius had been surprised to find that yes, he actually _did_ dislike cockatrice overdoors very much, he just never thought about it.

They swooped in the air, Remus watching their every movement warily.  The Captain tried to make small talk, no doubt feeling sorry about the little boy left out and was trying to be friendly, but Remus only responded half-heartedly.  Good Merlin, that dip that Sirius just took was _dangerous_ , didn’t the Captain _see_ that?  Couldn’t he make Sirius stop, stop killing himself while trying to try out everything, all the time?

Remus felt a sudden hurt hit him like a brick wall, and trained his breath to be long and deep.

It was okay.  It was going to be okay.  Everything was fine, in the chilling September air, with green trees and the youthful sun.

When the Captain finally noticed the irresponsible flying, all he did was laugh and praise their flying.  Remus could envision _exactly_ how his fist would come in contact with the Captain Chapman’s face, how the bridge of his short nose would crack and bend unnaturally against his knuckles, how the snot would run with the blood, how a dull ache would spread in his fist, and how shocked and horrified Chapman would look, his eyes saucers popping out of his eye sockets, indignant noises gurgling in his throat.

He didn’t punch anybody, and instead put on a cheery, congratulatory smile when his boys came back to him.

That night, the four of them first got pissed together.

(Well, Marlene McKinnon and Becky Barker were also there, but they didn’t count.)

Sirius, with his smile that squeezed dimples into his sweet boy cheeks and eyes that commanded, nicked two bottles of port from the kitchen.  Apparently, they were making a special midnight treat for the professors, who had a conference tonight on various dull and inconsequential topics—pork medallion with port reduction sauce.  Sirius claimed that his charm ended at getting them some of that delectable meal, but Remus could spot a telling string of pork still stuck to his second tooth on the upper right row.

Remus munched on a chocolate chip biscuit that Sirius brought back and didn’t say a word.

Being twelve and liberated, of course the four (six) of them got drunk because none of them had any idea of tolerance.  Well, Remus did, but he forgot how his tolerance was built over the years—Marauder drinking, date drinking, wedding drinking, angry drinking, sad drinking, lonely drinking—and so he fell into the port sideways as well.

But a killer metabolism was good for things besides giving him an early head of grey hair.  By the time midnight rolled over into that vague time phase between very late and very early, Remus was mostly sober.  Of course, it wasn’t fun having straight thoughts when all your mates were smashed beyond what their tiny child-bodies should contain.  So Remus dragged himself up the stairs, and after a few minutes of dry-gagging and futilely trying to puke out the rolling nausea in his stomach, he climbed into bed.

Not five minutes later, loud steps echoed through the stairs and soon Sirius burst into the room.

Sirius had a bruised lip and a wobble to his step—and Remus immediately remembered that Becky was one of the first birds that Sirius kissed.  (One of the first, because Sirius wouldn’t say who was his first, a secret that Remus had never dug out of him.)  Remus _knew_ there was a reason why he disliked Becky’s blunt bangs and square glasses so much.  She would grow into such a harlot too, because she was a pretty child but less-than-pretty youth, and she always would miss being pretty.

He should be too mature to think vehement (and chauvinistic, if he was frank with himself) thoughts about a wee little girlie.

By the time he fought down the guilt (pushing it into the sea of turmoil in his stomach, where it drowned like any human thing), Sirius had flung himself gracefully onto his own bed.

A little wobbly, but still undeniably graceful.

Remus was contemplating whether he should close his curtains to allow Sirius some privacy when Sirius tossed a pillow at him.

Remus grabbed it mid-air and decided that he should keep it.  Perhaps Sirius wouldn’t even remember this in the morning, and Merlin Sirius’s pillows were the most decadent things he had ever laid his head on.  Sirius’s Mother sent a set of bedding, not for Sirius’s comfort, but because unnecessary fastidiousness was a trait she wanted to cultivate.  And really, the pillow was filled with Eiderdown and encased in Egyptian cotton, with ‘Sirius Orion Black’ embroidered in gilt cursive letters at the corner.

“Keep it,” Sirius mumbled at him, and Remus looked at him in mild surprise.

One of the most innocent traits of the young Sirius was his lack of awareness of wealth.  He trusted others with his effects with a matter-of-fact lack of thought that only the wealthy could afford.  It would only take him around another week to learn how to flaunt his riches, and another month for him to find that hiding it and allowing others to discover it was more effective.

“Thanks,” Remus said quietly and pressed his face into the soft cotton surface.

Some shuffling, and suddenly the corner of his bed sank dangerously as Sirius jumped onto it.

Remus looked at him in real surprise now.

Sirius lowered himself and pressed his face to Remus’s ear, and in a boy-whisper that spoke of secrets and the delight of secret things, he told Remus, “You know I _lied_.”

Remus was momentarily paralyzed with the thought of all the possibilities.

“I didn’t _accidentally_ tip you over into the lake,” Sirius giggled a little and shook his hair back, the dark strands flying out of his eyes and glistening just like the dark lake waters under that stray stream of moon.  “I crashed into you.  I wanted to see if the water would allow swimming.”

Sirius was a cruel child at times, but nonetheless Remus felt a surge of warmth consume him as Sirius flashed him a grin again.

“I wouldn’t recommend a swim,” Remus whispered back.

Sirius giggled again, and Remus missed his weight when he rolled out and went back to his own bed.

**-.-.-**

The last day of October was Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday.  Remus didn’t understand why Nick insisted on celebrating it, but he supposed that there wasn’t much to celebrate as a ghost, and Nick took whatever he was given.

Of course, what other gift could the resident troublemakers of Gryffindor give Nick but a thoughtful (if still rather sloppily done) prank.  It was a remarkable prank, not because it went particularly well (in fact, it was the opposite), but because it marked the beginning of their lifelong fascination—and entanglement—with mischief and chaos.

They had been toying with a sort of camaraderie (and so of course trouble) for a while now, though.

Childhood was all about secrets: secret calls, secret names, secret adventures—inventing secrecy where there was none.  James was incredibly into it, passionately making names for them—they were the _Marauders_ —and whispering at night through the curtains, as if there was a ghost man outside the room to overhear.  Peter followed his suit, at least allowing himself to be whispered to, and returning the calls of the Marauders—a low coo of the raven.  Sirius was not big on this—probably because he _had_ secrets to begin with—but he went along with an indulgent sort of energy.

The natural next step was a secret hideout, and that took longer.

They were popular kids, sure, but it was a strange kind of popularity.  Everybody else thought that the Marauders were so incredibly _cool_ , but nobody talked to them.  They snubbed most of their attempts to strike up friendship, and instead, chose to isolate themselves into an island of four.  James thought that it them more special this way.  Peter agreed.  Sirius just didn’t _like_ people.  Remus—well Remus was a werewolf.

They didn’t find one until one day, Sirius got out a piece of parchment in History, and started drawing spidery lines.  That was start of the map, and a lifetime of running around underground.

But the _real_ start of the Marauders was at breakfast, when Nearly Headless Nick floated, as he oft did, through unsuspecting First Years, moaning how he missed French toast.

Why that spurred the creative mind of James Potter, Remus couldn’t tell, except for perhaps that French toast was always a sticky, syrupy mess.

The plan was to rain French toast onto the hundreds of students during lunch.  That was of course, only a means to the end: it would undoubtedly create a frenzy of running back to dorms and changing robes, and a stampede of students later, the halls would be empty.  (The elves would be there to dutifully clean up, but they wouldn’t interfere with the Plan.)  Left alone, they would spike each variety of food with a different potion—the sandwiches would have itching powder, the quiche a lethargy charm, the cake a bouncing inducer, and so on and so forth.

It only took two periods to gather all of that—Sirius skipped Care of Magical Creatures (‘ _that’s what we have hired help for,’_ he justified haughtily) and James never showed for History (‘ _not like Binns can tell any of us apart,_ ’ he waved off flippantly).

The trick to this Plan—and the most ingenious—was in the ceiling.  Rain would not be rain without an imposing gathering of storm clouds, and Remus supplied them with the spell that would create the illusion of maple syrup clouds.  It was one of his more beautiful works in his Second Year, Remus thought fondly.  The air up above would then be linked with the kitchen oven, and a torrential supply of French toast would fall out of the rip in space.

Sirius proudly said that he knew a _brilliant_ spell for looping two spaces, and was already reaching for his wand when Remus suddenly remembered something.

“No wait,” he said hastily, a hand on Sirius’s arm to steady him, “don’t use that one.  It’s too obviously Black.”

Sirius cocked an eyebrow.  Remus could tell from the way the corner of his mouth thinned and turned down by a millimetre that Sirius was annoyed by the mention of his family, but Remus really had to just say it.  “They’d be able to trace it to you without even thinking about it.  Do at least make it harder for the professors, won’t you?”

Last time, Remus hadn’t known any better, and a frightening McGonagall yelled at them while her hand twitched uncontrollably as she tried to fight off the urge to bounce.

This time though, they were never caught.

Remus was mightily proud of himself: he had spared the four of them an entire week of mirror polishing, on top of Sirius and James’ extra week of planting Giant Himalayan Lilies.  (Remus thought the experience probably traumatized James for a later encounter with Lily Evans.)

That night, Remus lay in bed waiting for Sirius’s voice, a hushed if urgent whisper for him to accompany him to the kitchen.  They had missed dinner, he would say; he was hungry, he would say.  It was a tender if bumbling attempt to both apologize (the elves always gave Sirius the best food) and mask the apology.  They would creep down, not hand in hand but almost, and would gorge their silly little eyes out with fudge brownies peanut butter pies, even leftover fried chicken drumsticks that were long past being crispy.  They would sneak back, fingers greasy and smiles wide, unmanly and gleeful giggles bouncing between the two of them, and when Remus looked Sirius in the eye, that was when he knew he had a friend.

Except the moon rose and fell back to the horizon, a pale orb against a growingly pale sky, and the only sound in the room was Peter’s soft snores from the other end of the room.

Sirius never said anything.

Remus couldn’t stop shaking.  He didn’t know what this signified—how significant a deviation it was from his history, and how much less Sirius thought of him now.  He swore, with all the earnestness that his thirty-four year old—twelve year old— self conjured, that he was never, ever, ever, _ever_ changing anything he did again.


End file.
